Thursday, October 24, 2002

Maritime Lecture To Discuss Women And The American Whalefishery, November 7

Chestertown, MD, October 24, 2002 — Washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and Sultana Projects, Inc. present “QUAKER WIVES AND CAPE HORN WIDOWS: NEW ENGLAND WOMEN AND THE AMERICAN WHALEFISHERY,” a lecture by Lisa Norling, Associate Professor of History at the University of Minnesota. This free talk will be held Thursday, November 7, 2002, in the College's Hynson Lounge, starting at 7:30 p.m. The public is invited to attend.
The author of Captain Ahab Had a Wife: New England Women and the Whalefishery, 1720-1870, Prof. Norling will discuss the role of women in the American whaling industry of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that sent hundreds of ships and thousands of men to distant seas on voyages lasting up to five years. Through sources such as women's and men's letters and diaries, shipowners' records, Quaker meeting minutes and other church records, newspapers and magazines, and censuses, Prof. Norling explores the often-overlooked side of this industry, reconstructing the lives of the “Cape Horn widows” left behind onshore and the impact that whaling had on these women's lives and gender roles.
Prof. Norling's talk concludes the 2002 Maritime Lecture Series sponsored by the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience in partnership with Sultana Projects, an organization that provides unique, hands-on educational experiences in colonial history and environmental science on board Chestertown's reproduction 18th century Schooner Sultana. Contact Kees deMooy, Program Manager for the C.V. Starr Center, at 410-810-7156, or visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu for a list of upcoming events and lectures.